After
by Ember Koramin
Summary: So the top agents for the Bureau split. Does anyone think there aren't going to be consequences? Jeez! Basically, what happens after.
1. Chapter 1

_The FABULOUS A/N: ermm… here's the first chapter. Just and intro chapter, much more to come._

_And honestly, I'm not here to have my ego stoked. If you don't like it, SAY SO! Tell me how to do it better, tell me what you hated, tell me if I've put too many commas in. Believe me, good reviews make me fuzzy, but bad ones make me work more._

After

Chapter 1: After the Choice

Liz was coming to the conclusion that Catholic mothers were obviously some sort of different species of human, possibly with largely unexamined physical attributes. Namely; a coating of steel in their wombs. How else would they be able to stand producing all those kids? She was only on her first two and already was at her breaking point.

She whimpered at the thought that she still had about two months ago with this bulging front. Two more months of puking every morning and grunting when bending over and not being able to sleep on her back _or_ her side_** or**_ her front…It wasn't that she didn't want kids; it wasn't that, it was just…

Okay, the truth was that at first she had been horrified at the thought of becoming a mother. Liz _knew_ she wasn't ready. She just knew she would be the most horrible mother ever. She knew nothing about babies and she could barely keep herself out of mental institutions. How was she supposed to be a caregiver to children? Thoughts had kept running through her head, worrying her to the point of nausea. What if she dropped it? What if it got sick and she couldn't get it to the hospital? What if the Bureau took her baby away?

What if it wasn't fireproof?

The thought had driven her to her knees in the auction room, stricken with terror. It was only denial that enabled her to use her power in the end; the sheer strength of the absolute denial that said Abe was wrong, he _had_ to be. After, when Liz found that, no, she was still pregnant, she figured the kid had to be fireproof after all that. But it still made her cringe to ignite.

Liz hadn't known what to do. She had considered every choice, even abortion and adoption, though she crossed adoption off pretty quickly. Abortion had lingered longer in her mind, simply because it was the way _out_. HB would never need to know, and she had thought that Abe would keep his silence to the death, for fear of hurting his friend. In fact, she had almost incinerated him when she woke up that night to find him about to drunkenly reveal her secret. At that point she still hadn't decided what to do. She hadn't made her choice until she was standing before that goddamn angel of talking crap, supporting the man she loved with her own pitiful strength.

_Choose_, the monster had said, with rotting teeth grinning at her. _The world…or him_. And it was him, him every time without even a thought. The decision had been made long ago without her even realizing it, and she was just a puppet following the motions. How could she say anything else?

_Give him a reason to live_, the angel had said. Hellboy was so strong and she was so weak beside him. But Hellboy was dying and she was still alive, still alive…

She was doubly alive, in a way. She carried his child and the proof of his love inside her. He had chosen her over the world, and had faced death itself to bring her back. If he was strong enough for that then she was strong enough for a kid. And she told him so right then, her choice made.

Liz didn't regret it. She knew she never would, no matter what happened. She would simply have to become strong enough to bear up under the challenge. She knew she would, because she had her guy beside her. He was the man who had turned his back on his destiny for her, who had fought the Golden army and lived. He was a man who had quit everything he ever knew to start a new life with his family, and a man who saved the world every day, in every way he could. A man who loved her.

"Liz?" A voice yelled from the yard outside their new home. "Did you say the sewage line was in the _front_ yard or the _back_ yard?"

"Front yard!" she yelled back. Dead silence met her response.

"Shit!"

Liz just shook her head and smiled to herself. This was going to be interesting…but she didn't regret it. Not now, not ever.

"Liz, can you bring me the duct tape?"


	2. After the Break

Chapter 2: After the Break

Hellboy regretted now the fact that he'd never paid more attention at the army base where he grew up. After all, the place was a self supporting compound of over eight hundred men who survived by being prepared. He was sure that his foster uncles had known how to do all sorts of things. He was even sure he had _seen_ them do all sorts of things by themselves. Things a man needed to know to support himself and others. Things like laundry and cooking and hammering and welding and grafting and plumbing and painting….

He couldn't remember anything.

He watched T.V, it wasn't like he was stupid or anything. He knew the basic gist of what was supposed to happen with these projects. The thing was that the basic gist was all he knew. They couldn't even afford to hire professionals, as neither he nor Liz had a job right now.

Hellboy had known it wasn't going to be easy to break away from the Bureau. He just hadn't known it was going to be this _hard_. His face was known everywhere, and not everyone liked it. He could handle the random people asking for autographs, and he could handle the request for pictures. What he couldn't seem to get used to were the silent stares and grimaces, or the views of mothers hurrying away their children. It ate him up badly. It was like an acid boiling in his stomach, but he was determined not to let it show. Liz had enough to worry about, and he'd ignored most other people staring at him for most of his life. He could handle this.

Still, he needed a job. Hellboy wasn't going to allow Liz to go out and try to find something, though she probably could have. She hadn't been as publicized as he and Abe, and when you looked normal most people were liable to forget you. She had advertised for a work at home kind of thing; something with paperwork or phones, but no one had responded. He himself was going hungry most of the time to try and reserve the small amount of cash given to them by the friends they had left back at the Bureau. He was starting to get desperate, but he wasn't going to back down unless Liz's life became endangered. He wasn't going to raise his children there.

Not that the Bureau hadn't tried. Both of them had been pestered constantly to come back, and Manning alone had probably made over a hundred calls. The calls stopped when the threats of agent paté began, but grudgingly. It was if they couldn't quite believe that their top agents had just up and walked out on them after more than fifty years of being caged from the outside world, never even taking a sick day.

Hellboy couldn't quite believe it either. All he had ever known was fighting. Since WWII it was all he'd ever done. He had no job skills; had not even formally passed high school. He knew many of the vast waters of demon folklore, and the three ways to bind the dead to your bidding. He could cast his own bullets and disassemble and reassemble most guns in under a minute. He knew how to punch things till they broke and how to ignore his body screaming at him to lay the hell down when he was hurt.

But he didn't know how to get a goddamn kitchen sink working.

"Red, what are you _doing_?" Liz walked into the kitchen to the sight of him halfway under the counter, water seeping slowly around him. Her gate wasn't exactly a waddle yet, but it was getting there. The twins would be here in another two months, and Liz was getting huge. Damn, she was hot.

"I'm fixing the sink. Like you wanted. I think I got it to stop doing that bursting water thing." He replied, but it sounded muffled and was interspaced with small thuds of a wrench knocking against pipes. Liz closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, as if trying to ward off a headache.

"Oh god, why don't you ask Abe to come and help you?"

"Are you typecasting? What, call Abe because it's the pipes?"

"No! Call Abe because he actually reads and follows instructions!"

"Oh." Hellboy considered this for a while. On the one hand, resorting to calling someone else, and _Abe_ at that, would put a serious dent in his role as the guy who is able to support his family. On the other hand, if he managed to screw up the sink beyond repair, there was no telling what could happen. He'd probably end up having to call Abe anyway, and Liz would be mad at him on top of that. She got stressed when she got mad. Oh jeez, she did not need to be stressed right now. He had to keep her unstressed.

_So you can't let her get stressed. What can you do?_ one part of his brain asked him. _Call….Abe?_ the other part answered hesitantly. _Very good_, the first part replied. That internal battle over with, a new one started as Hellboy struggled out from under the kitchen counter and got up, planting a kiss on Liz's bemused face as he walked past her to get to the phone.

Hellboy was on edge as he dialed Abe's phone number. He just hoped that this time his friend picked up. His nervousness was rewarded by a click after the sixth ring, though there was dead silence on the other end for a moment.

"Abe? Blue? You there?" Hellboy forced a cheerful and nonchalant tilt into his voice, though it felt like his chest was trying to squeeze in on itself. He had to make himself to relax, and to push himself not to care. What Abe did to himself was his own business. Still, he couldn't shake the concern or the anger he felt at this crap, and he knew he wasn't supposed to.

"_I am am here. What…what ish it…Red?"_ The voice that answered was nothing like the clear voice his partner had once had. It was slurred and tired, sounding as though its owner had been sleeping for days. Under running it all was a deep pain that was tangible even to Hellboy, who was the first to tell you he wasn't the most empathic person in the world.

"Abe, how ya doin'?" The question was loud and hesitant at the same time; an attempt to cover his own uncertainty. Hellboy had not been nervous about much in his life, but he was forced to admit he was nervous for his friend's health, mentally and physically.

_"I am…fine. Just dandyyyy…."_ came the drawn out reply, lilting a bit at the end. Hellboy frowned and turned to check if Liz was out of hearing range. He could hear her rummaging in the fridge for something, possibly another weird item she had recently taken a liking to. Still, he lowered his voice to a fierce whisper.

"Abe, are you drunk?!" Hellboy glanced at the clock; it wasn't yet ten in the morning. There was silence at the other end, then a small wet release of air from tired gills.

"_No. No, I am not …drunk. Just, just tired. I am simply __**tired**__, Red. I'm tired of everything. I just want to sleep…"_

"Aww slaggit, Abe. That's it, I'm coming over there. You'd better have your ass out of the pool too, or I'm dragging you out myself." Hellboy didn't wait for a reply as he slammed the phone down and turned to grab a T-shirt. He had taken it off earlier to try and avoid getting it wet. It looked like it might end up that way by the end of the day anyway.

"Are you going over there?" Liz was suddenly in front of him, holding a piece of cold pineapple pizza gingerly in one hand and a napkin in the other. She had a calculating look on her face, as if she had heard everything in the previous conversation. Hellboy knew he had to tread carefully here. Liz had been unable to see Abe for a long while due to the fact that they didn't have a car and therefore had to walk everywhere they went. Hellboy suspected his amphibious friend had chosen his home not just because of it's proximity to the sea, but because of its distance from the house he and Liz had found. He had managed to keep her relatively in the dark concerning Abe's worsening condition, but he knew she must suspect something through his half truths.

"Ah, yeah. Yeah, I'm going over there. He's got tools and stuff and he wants me to see some new doodad he just put in, some broke edwardi thing-"

"Red, honestly, do you think I'm clueless? He's getting worse, isn't he? I'm going to talk to him-" She reached over her husband to try and grab the phone, but Hellboy blocked her and tried to placate her with a succession of half spoken words and hand gestures. Liz drew back and stared at him, and both were silent before they each launched into the argument.

"He's my friend too, Red, and he needs help. If I talk to him maybe I can-"

"No, no he just needs some time, that's all. He's a little depressed but I can handle it.."

"Hellboy, you running out of hot sauce is a 'little depressed'. This is not a 'little depressed'. He needs someone to talk to! And he listened to me when I was confused about us so I think that if I listened to him…"

"What he _needs_ is a good sobering up and a kick in the ass! I'm his best friend and I'll get him out of it! You need to stay calm and rest, and all talking to him right now will do is get you frustrated and upset!"

"Don't treat me like a child, Red! I'm not some china doll that's going to break if something uncheerful passes by." Hellboy shut up and looked down at his feet. He mentally slapped his overprotective nature and forced himself to relax. He gritted the next words out through his teeth.

"Yeah, yeah. You're right. I'm sorry. It's just that…" He let out a frustrated puff of air and turned his head to the side. He was startled when a smaller hand gently touched his face and pulled it close.

"I don't think I could stand it if you got hurt," he said in a whisper, looking into his love's eyes. "And right now Abe isn't listening to reason. I'll kick some sense into him, and then hand him over for your own special physco-whatsits. That good?"

Liz gazed up at him for a while and leaned in to kiss his lips softly, closing her eyes to concentrate on the feel of it.. When she finally stopped Hellboy also had his eyes closed and was as still as a statue. Their gentleness was a direct contrast to the harsh raised voices of a moment ago, and Hellboy savored it with all his might.

"You go, and knock his head around a little. _Just_ a little. Then bring him back here and I'll talk to him." Hellboy nodded and kissed her once more before going out the front door to their house, not closing it behind him because he hadn't had time to put the hinges back on before the sink started acting up. He pulled his shirt over his head and started to head across the field toward road, which he would be able to take to the main highway and then possibly hitch a ride for the fifteen miles that stretched between his new home and the house of his grief stricken brother.


	3. After the Loss

Chapter 3: After the Loss

It hurt to breath.

Every stream of water over his gills was raw agony, bearable only by the fact that he was more or less past the point of noticing it. Physical pain was the least of his torments.

Abraham gazed over the smooth and unbroken floor of the pool by his home. Midmorning sun played over the pea gravel he'd spread over the bottom early on, and algae of different types was beginning to grow in the absence of chlorine or bromine. A dead beetle floated on the surface, and he twisted away from the intercom embedded in the concrete in order to stare at it.

There was something fascinating in the stillness of the small insect crossed in the soft motion of the water. There was something enchanting in the way it neither enabled nor protested the slow current carrying it towards the filter. It passed briefly between his body and the sun, causing laser points of light to stream around the inert form and make rippling patterns on his chest, ten feet below.

He turned away from the beetle and watched instead the minute waving of algae fronds on the bottom. He no longer wished to look at dead things, no matter how much they might have in common with him. The algae was alive, yet it did not think. There was no need for it to. It was a perfect organism, something functional and unable to feel pain. What did the algae care if millions of its brother cells died when he moved his hand, like so? It was not aware of itself as a group, or of itself as an individual.

That was the ideal form, Abe thought to himself. Something unable to notice the disasters of its world. Something unable to notice the disasters unto itself. What marvels the process of evolution has reached, he thought, and what horrors it has yet forced on us. The endless parade of time led to only one thing, though at the moment he was having trouble remembering what that was. That was…good. He remembered that he didn't want to remember. He knew that he was keeping himself from remembering…how? He knew there was something..something…if he was remembering these things, he thought, then he ought to do something about it. Dark feelings were beginning to rise at the back of his mind; back from where he had pushed them.

His mind was extremely well kept and disciplined. He could consciously file thoughts and processes in certain places, either to be kept for later use or discarded as needed. Certain things, of course, could not be thrown away. Large samples of his memory, for example, or basic operating functions. The best he could do was repress them. This could be augmented with chemicals and meditation processes…yes, chemicals. That was it. He remembered now. There were bottles next to the surface of the water, where he'd discarded them earlier. All he had to do was…get them. Which meant leaving the water.

This thought alone caused him to pause for a full minute, or a full half hour, he wasn't sure. He considered the choice before him. He did not feel like moving now. However, if he waited too long then the memories would start to come back. While he could not exactly remember what these memories were, he could feel that they were bad, and he reasoned that they must be extremely bad for him to have repressed them in the first place. Logically, the only thing to do was to keep repressing them, even if he had forgotten why. So that led back to the decision, which was to continue to lie there peacefully, or gather enough initiative and brain function to swim to the top of the water and heave himself out.

Also…there was Hellboy. Hellboy had called him. How long ago had that been?...No matter. But still, his friend had threatened to drag him out of the water, at least he thought he had. He might have dreamed that. He had dreamt of so many strange things lately. Dreams of darkness and gold and figures in shadow. Figures with blue hands. There was a tree growing out of his head, and he was the earth, all encompassing and all seeing, watching the tiny figures run across his skin like dust mites. Clouds drifted over his arms and swirled into intricate patterns and runes, and if only he could decipher them he would surely know what it was the dream was about. Ah, the dream again. Dreams, dream, multiple or singular, they were coming more frequently. He felt as if the dreams were something alive, something reaching out to touch his mind. All he wished for were the dreams; the dreams and the water.

He should get out of the water. If in fact he had not dreamed it, Hellboy was a man of his word. If he had indeed said he would drag him out of the water (and it had not, in fact, been a dream), then he was probably going to be dragged out of the water. There was nothing he could really do about that. Except for get out on his own. This he could do. It seemed important to him that he not be dragged, for some reason. He didn't really know why it mattered, but there it was. One could never really get rid of all these cultural impressions. Aversions to being dragged must be one of them.

Slowly, very slowly, he righted himself in the water and took stock of where he was. Slowly he moved his left hand in front of his body, angled up, and watched it catch the light. Very slowly he began to move that arm downward, feeling the liquid trickle past his hand like a half formed memory.

It took a long time for him to reach the surface. Finally he floated there, just barely grazing the border. He could feel air on his shoulders, could see the edge of the concrete and the grass beyond. He carefully maneuvered his hands to grasp the edge, and _oh so carefully_ levered his lean body out of the water, as if the slightest jolt would break him into a thousand china pieces. He felt brittle in the thin air, and resolved to get back in as soon as possible. He looked around the edge of the pool blearily, searching for the bottles he had strewn. Hellboy had not known what he was doing when he had introduced his friend to alcohol.

"You know, I was wondering how long it would take ya to get out. You ready to talk or do I have to force coffee down your gills?" No, Hellboy had not known that he was creating a raging alcoholic, but from his precise and decisive actions it certainly seemed as though he knew how to fix one. All the bottles had their tops neatly broken off, the amber liquid in them spilled out into the grass and drenching the earth. Wasps were beginning to be attracted to the sickly sweet smell of it, and were thoroughly ignored by the giant red demon that lazed on the ground next to them. He looked at Abe expectantly. Abe just stood their, not quite ready to believe what he was seeing was real. He waved his hand in front of his eyes in an attempt to clear that issue up.

"I…am not merely drunk, Red. I do not even know if what I am can truly be classified as _drunk_." Abe stared at Hellboy as if defying him to challenge that. Hellboy easily rose to the bait.

"Abe, what you are right now is far past drunk. You may still be able to talk and stuff, sure, but you're definitely not sober. You look like you're dead. All pale and nasty." He gave a small wince, not half in jest, at the sight of how his friend had failed to take care of himself in the past few months. _I should have been here for him, or at least checked up on him more_, Abe picked up from his mind. _One more thing I've managed to screw up_.

If nothing else, he was determined to be left alone. With that in mind Abe spoke again, subdued this time, and with a hint of something darker in his voice. "You should not be here, Hellboy. You should be home with Liz. Or out finding a job. That money won't last forever, you know. Or are you going to start starving your children also?"

Hellboy almost rose to the insult. He almost knocked Abe backwards through the garden gate. To his credit he held himself in, his right hand grinding dust onto the concrete, and forced himself to consider the circumstances. Abe was drunk, for one thing. Also, Abe was probably smarter as a drunk than Hellboy was when sober. His partner in crime was trying to drive him away. He allowed himself a brief glimmer of pride in the fact that he'd figured out the plan and kept his temper at the same time. Father would have been proud.

Abe saw all this as easily as if the monkey had screamed it at him. He felt the awesome rage at the implication that he would mistreat his loved ones. He felt that rage barely checked, and saw the visible relaxation of facial and pectoral muscles.

Hellboy lowered his arm slowly and watched as Abe glared at him, thwarted. "That kinda shit ain't gonna work right now, buddy. I've got a concerned wife at home all waiting to do psychotherapy on your ass, and I'm not about to leave you alone again." He took a breath, readying himself for a barrage of insults he didn't understand as he finished saying his bit. "Now, are you going to open up peacefully and promise to stop drinking, or am I gonna end up carrying you back over my shoulder?"

Abe simply stared at him balefully. He could feel flashes of memory starting to resurface. Nothing specific yet, just pain. Without the help of chemical depressants he would have to work harder to keep the rest from coming back. He needed to meditate. _In the water or out_, he wondered. _In would be better, but Red is still here._ _Dragging is not good for meditation…_

He barely noticed the surprised look on Hellboy's face as he sank gracefully to the ground in a standard lotus position. He began to breathe shallowly, reaching for the calm that allowed him to manipulate his mind with precision. Gills rustled with each breath, but were startled into flaring when a rough hand grabbed his shoulder.

"Hey! Don't ignore this, fish stick! You can't go killing yourself over this! I'm not gonna let you." Now that was ridiculous. He wasn't trying to _kill_ himself, not really.

"And why not?! I don't see how it's any business of yours!" he hissed angrily. He shook off the hand and tried to gather his thoughts. More flashes were coming forwards, and faster too. He saw a figure in some of them, and he knew that if he saw the face it would be all over.

The hand reached out again, stronger this time. It jerked him around, causing him the lean heavily on the ground to keep from falling. Despite this he could still see golden eyes glaring at him angrily. Hellboy had kneeled down to look him in the face.

"It's my business because I'm your friend, jackass! Like it or not, it is my business when you decide that 'hey! Life is just _too hard_. Instead of coping with it, I think I'll kill my brain!' That's not going to fly, Abe. None of us are gonna let it."

He gave the shoulder a shake or two in order to get the message across. Abe never even heard the last exclamation. His mind was being flooded by color and sound, and though he gritted his teeth and tried to stop it, the memories were coming back. They filled in the gaps like a waterfall of feeling, piecing the past together with a deadly clarity that left him reeling. He remembered _everything_. He heard Hellboy saying his name only distantly. The story unfolding was all encompassing, and he had no choice but to relive it. Every detail was as heart piercing as it had been originally, though even more was added by the thought that he had blocked this out. How could he have? How could he have erased her presence from his mind? For as painful as it was, the beauty of her was something he needed, something he had not known he was missing until he saw her; felt her mind. It was a knife in his heart that she had died, but the memory of her was something to be treasured. Remorse racked his body, and he found himself sobbing in Hellboy's awkward arms, shaking in a ball of misery.

"Nuala, oh Nuala. I am so sorry..." he whispered, the syllables squeezing past his throat like shards of glass. He was sorry for many things about their encounter, but he was most sorry for throwing her away as if she was a photograph he no longer wished to look at.

He came to himself a little, and found that Hellboy was sitting on the ground next to him. Leaning on his friend heavily, he could hear the feelings screaming panic and uncertainty at him. Hellboy obviously had absolutely no idea what had happened. He also had no idea what to do, and had resorted to instinct and the example given by his father.

"…-ah, Blue. Blue, it's okay. Just, just let it out, okay? I mean, jeez, keeping all that inside? Not good, Abe, not good. These things just keep building up, you know? Blocking them just makes it worse right? You just-…"

_Oh, Hellboy_, he thought, _you're more right than you know_. Gradually the sobs quieted until they stopped altogether. He sat up and pushed his friend away. Hellboy seemed both relieved and weary of this loss of contact, and stared as if waiting for him to lose it again. Abe sighed and gave a small smile. He was lucky to have such stubborn friends.

"It's alright, Red. I'm not going to hurl myself off the cliffs or anything."

"Are you okay now?" Silence for a while; followed by an intake of breath and something that was a cross between a shake and nod of the head.

"No, but I think I will be, eventually."

"You want to talk?"

"…Yeah. I'd like that."

_A/N: It is hard to write depressed people. I hope it came out okay_.


End file.
